The victory won in the wilderness over the tempter was both perfect and permanent. For both satan and Christ it had been a decisive test. From that time the devil never again approached Christ in the same way and Christ ever treated satan and his emissaries as Victor treats the vanquished.
But the temptation in the wilderness was humanity's test as well as Christ's. God was giving man another chance, a last chance. Therefore the victory was humanity's victory. The Lord Jesus was there as God's second Man qualifying to become man's Saviour and as the last Adam preparing to become the Head of a new race of men. "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" must be without spot. satan had used every avenue of approach and every method of attack to make Him sin and to win His allegiance but he had failed utterly. The Son of Man came forth from this fierce conflict unscathed, unsullied, unstained. At every point where the first man had failed, the second Man had succeeded; at every place where the first Adam met defeat, the last Adam won victory. The fight against sin, self and satan had been completely won. His sinlessness qualified Him for Saviourhood. The victory in the wilderness was more than personal, it was racial; it was your victory and mine, if we will.
Sinlessness, however, is a negative condition of life and God requires more than that. For the fullest fellowship with Himself He demands something positive, even the perfection of holiness. So Christ went forth from the wilderness to live a perfect life - perfect in its words, walk, ways and work. Perfection marked everything in His character and conduct. He Himself testified both negatively and positively to the perfection of His life when He said "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me" (John 14:30) and "The Father hath not left me alone for I do always those things that please Him" (John 8:29). He was not only the sinless One but the perfect One.
The perfection of His life was the perfection of obedience, of unwavering, unvarying submission to His Father's will. When He emptied Himself of His equality with the Father and yielded the place of sovereignty for one of subserviency He surrendered completely His right to speak, to act, to will independently of His Father.
His obedience was the obedience of the God-man: of the divine-human Mediator, of God's second representative Man. It was therefore not due to any divine attributes of the Son of God but was an obedience the Son of Man learned through sufferings, and sorrow, through trial and tribulation as He trod the pathway of all humanity.
It was an obedience that did not end simply in the perfection of moral beauty and spiritual grace in daily life but one which led Him to drink the cup of suffering to its very dregs. It constrained Him, even compelled Him to be obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, because this was the Father's will. He measured up to the full stature of the perfection of holiness in God the Father through His perfect obedience as the incarnate Son.
In the person of the God-man the broken unity between God and man has been reestablished. For what purpose? For none other than that of restoring in man the image of God, disfigured and marred by sin. In the holiness of the perfect Man sinful humanity has not only a revelation of what God meant man to be but also a pledge of what man may become. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself that He might lift man out of what he is into what God is.
God proposes the inauguration of a new order of beings who are to be as heavenly and holy, as pure and perfect as He is; a race of redeemed men and women who shall be "conformed to the image of His Son." Undiscouraged by sin's tragic work God purposes to carry out His original intention that man shall be like Himself. The new union God made with humanity in the incarnation is His pledge of the fulfillment of such a purpose. He stooped to an actual identification with human nature and by that stoop He lifted human nature into an actual identification with the divine nature.
Reconciliation - The Plenary Purpose in the Incarnation
The revelation of God in Christ to man and the redemption by God in Christ of man were undoubtedly he preliminary and the primary purpose in the incarnation. But they do not exhaust the exceeding riches of God's grace in salvation nor complete His purpose in sending His only begotten Son into the world.
Sin despoiled both the human race and the natural universe. Sin produced chaos in the place of cosmos. Both heaven and earth suffered through sin.
Christ the Son is the Alpha and He is the Omega. He is the goal of all things in God's universe as He is the beginning. Christ Jesus is the firstborn of all creation; by Him all things consist and in Him shall all things be gathered together. God's eternal purpose in Christ His Son will be consummated in the reconciliation of all things in heaven and in earth unto Himself.
Ephesians 1:10, "That in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him."
Incarnation then is the first span in the bridge of salvation, the first great movement toward the restoration of man to God and toward the reconciliation of all things in God's universe. It is no wonder the angels of heaven sang on that first Christmas morning. The birth of the Lord Jesus was the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophecy-promise of Genesis 3:15.l It was the first step in the overthrow of God's arch-enemy; the first victory in the age long conflict; the beginning of the end of sin. It was to the angels as to us, "the central point from which all events were to be hereafter measured. To Heaven as to earth it was to be the reckoning point of all time, and more, for B.C. and A.D. are to be the extensions of eternity."
~Ruth Paxson~
(the end)
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